Pollen, a UK-based travel and music experience company, is facing £75 million ($85 million) in debt as creditors struggle to carry out a restructuring that no interest other than a potential buyer.
Details of Pollen’s debts are published by the software engineering industry focused on Pragmatic Engineer on Friday (October 21), which cited a report sent by Pollen administrators to creditors.
The report revealed that the company received a Offer to buy back $2.5 million on August 9, just one day before it goes in management. The offer was rejected by the company’s directors after discussions with its secured creditor, Global Growth Capital.
New York-based restructuring and default specialist Kroll, who tapped to manage Pollen’s restructuring, sent a referral document to 154 potential buyers and while 14 said it was important interest in the company – including Pollen’s technology, the Pollen brand and shares of Abode Records Ltd. – none of them proceed to make the offer, Pragmatic engineer speak.
The original buyer made an offer of $2.5 million and then lowered the bid 500 million dollars on September 14 and proposed to include Just Experiences Ltd., which operates a business as Trippr, in the acquisition. Two weeks later, the undisclosed buyer announced he had halved his most recent bid 250,000 dollars.
The sale of Pollen could soon happen with no other benefit except one party, unless that potential buyer bids, the report said.
The 75 million pounds The debt that Pollen owes to creditors includes the following, according to Practical engineer:
- 18.6 million pounds Secured creditor debt, Global Growth Capital
- £607,000 to preferred creditors, including employee claims for arrears of wages, holiday pay and pension arrears
- 59.4 million pounds owned by unsecured creditors, including suppliers and funds, employee pensions, HSBC overdrafts, HSBC bank loans, shareholders with claims, loans with convertible, American Express and employee costs
The report lists additional software companies that have yet to receive payment from Pollen including project management firm Monday.com, messaging platform Twilio, cloud company AWS, Zoom, Datadog, Vercel, Mixpanel, User Testing, Retool, Cobalt Labs, Queue-it, Snowflake, Airtable, Falcon.io, Grammarly, Salesforce and Trustpilot.
Pollen also has unpaid fees to recruitment partners such as Deep Abacus and Velocity Global, and other service providers including software distribution company Thoughtworks, which owes £1.1m, audit firm PwC, travel provider Concur and brand partner company Graphite Media, among many others.
The filing reveals how Pollen managed to raise $150 million in a C-chain funding round in April despite mounting debt. The company’s troubles came after it lay off more than 150 employees in May, just a month after the fundraiser drew money from investors Kindred, Northzone, Sienna Capital, Backed and Draper Spirit.
In one statement In August when it announced a restructuring with Streetteam Software’s parent company Kroll, it blamed its troubles on “the strong impact of COVID-19 over the past two years, which has weakened its share of the business.” large tourism sector”.
Streetteam also attributed its demise to a collapse in tech stocks and consumer uncertainty amid the global economic landscape.Worldwide music business
